


It's Okay, I Hate Me Too

by ivegonetosayhello



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, I'm Sorry Lance, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Langst, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, My First Work on this Site, Pidge has they/them pronouns, the paladins are lil shits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 09:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10851474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivegonetosayhello/pseuds/ivegonetosayhello
Summary: Everyone just seems to be against Lance. Always shouting insults, even when he's in hearing range. But it's fine for him, because he secretly agrees too.





	1. It's Okay, I Hate Me Too

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is my first work here on AO3. Sorry for any grammar issues, lol. I had an anxious feeling in my stomach while writing this.

Being overlooked wasn’t a foreign feeling for Lance.

Back at the Garrison, he often heard a plethora of insults directed towards him, said by students and instructors alike. A lot of them from Iverson, the dude who oversaw the cadets. Man, he hated Iverson.

He happened to be strolling past a group of his peers. They were looking at him from the wall they were propped up against.

“Did you hear about that one guy Lance? He just failed his simulation test for the fifth time in a row.”

“Yeah, I did. The dude’s pathetic. How’d he even get accepted into the Garrison in the first place?”

“He only got into the fighter pilot class because Keith dropped out. I’m shocked Lance wasn’t the one to get dropped.”

“He can’t even handle the shit in the cargo pilot class. He’s pathetic.”

Lance just smiled. _It’s okay, I hate me too._

 

  
“We’re going to have to visit the Worbla planet for some supply negotiations,” Allura says, after shortly gathering all the paladins plus Coran for a meeting. “The Worblon are fairly nice aliens, so the negotiations should go quickly. I expect you all to be on your best behavior,” Her light tone disappears as her eyes land on Lance. The mood suddenly becomes more hostile. “Especially you, Lance. You stay in the back. I don’t want you messing this up.”

Lance lets out a nervous, breathy laugh. “Got it, princess.” Allura narrows her eyes even more. _Great, she doesn’t trust me. I should’ve seen that coming, though._

The castle-ship lands on the planet. The Worblon gather around the paladins in awe, talking amongst themselves.

“Can you believe it?! It’s the paladins of Voltron!”

“Strong and mighty, strong and mighty.”

“Amazing!”

Allura gains a confident stature when the leader of the Worblon comes forward. They both go somewhere else to talk. Shiro and Keith have a private conversation. Pidge and Hunk had a ‘who can fit their fist into their mouth’ competition. Lance stood by himself until several aliens approached him.

“Excuse me,” The Worblon said, looking up at Lance. “Aren’t you the blue paladin of Voltron?”

Lance gave a soft smile. “Yeah, I am. I pilot one of the legs.” _And I’m also the most overlooked member of Voltron…_

“You’re not as uptight as the other members,” Another smiled. “I like that. You’re very lighthearted. I don’t think you get stressed in battle. The others are so serious, so scary. You’re, ah, cool.” Lance’s eyes lit up and he gave a genuine grin. This was the first compliment he’s ever received.

“Thank you.”

“ _LANCE!_ ” A voice screeched from behind him. He turned around and saw the fuming face of Allura stomping towards him. Her fists were balled up, and she had gritted teeth. The Worblon he talked to slowly backed away. Lance gulped. _What did I do now?_

“I specifically told you to stay in the back! What are you even doing?!” She yelled, and the other paladins looked at Lance. They all had the expression of “Jeez Lance, you already messed up?”.  
“You’re messing things up again, aren’t you?!”

She turned towards the Worblon. “I apologize for whatever he did. He doesn’t seem to have any seriousness in his body.” The Worblon looked at her, confused.

“He didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, we were just complimenting him. You should be more like him, he’s very lighthearted compared to the serious faces of you guys.”

Allura just gave a forced smile and commanded all of the paladins to go back onto the castle-ship.

 

“Did you trick the Worblon or something?” Allura asked him later, during a meeting. “We all know the real you. You’re not the one to be complimented on.” _Ouch._

“Yeah,” Pidge piped up. “You don’t take anything seriously. You don’t do well in battle either. What’s there to compliment?” The others laughed. Lance just bit his lip and exited the room. _It’s okay, I hate me too._

  
Well, at least the Worblon were nice enough to compliment him.

 

  
Lance and the other paladins were currently in a battle with the Galra. Ships surrounded them.

“Pidge, use your invisibility cloak to get us close to the main ship. Keith and I will cover while you and Hunk shut down their ion cannons. Hopefully Pidge will get the information they need,” Shiro speaks from the com, but pauses. “Oh, and Lance, just don’t do anything stupid. We don’t need you goofing off and jeopardizing the mission.”

Lance sighed. “Got it.”

They all split up, each lion tackling their own problem. Lance just wandered around, carefully aiming the giant energy rifle on his lion to blast random Galra ships in his line of vision. He wanted to be careful, because if he fucked something up, then Shiro was going to scold and berate him while the other paladins looked at him with no pity.

Suddenly, the ion cannon blasted Blue, and she went spiraling off into space. Lance got dislodged from his seat and was hitting nearly every wall inside of Blue.

A weird-looking sheet of metal got lodged into Lance’s side. He screamed in pain, and he widened his eyes at the sight of the blood. Another piece of metal punctured Lance’s right eye. He saw a flash of blindingly bright light, and then darkness. He screamed his heart out, and then blacked.

 

When he woke up, he discovered that the inside of Blue looked like a crime scene. Blood was everywhere. He looked down at his armor to find out that it was damaged severely.

“You okay, Blue?” He rasped, and Blue responded with a purr. She was alright. “Good. ‘Cause I’m going to need you to fly us back to the castle-ship. She started moving.

He reached for his helmet and put it on, hoping to communicate with his teammates to signal that he strayed. Instead, he heard more slander.

“Lance screwed up again. “ Pidge.

“We clearly gave him instructions, how hard is it to follow them?” Keith.

“They were simple orders. I’m honestly kind of shocked.” Hunk.

“Don’t be. When he gets back, I’ll make sure to reprimand him for the trouble he’s caused.” Allura.

“I second that. He needs to learn to take things seriously. We’re saving the universe, this isn’t a board game.” Shiro.

Lance threw his helmet to the other side of the area. He felt tears coming out of his eyes, and he released a shaky breath. He tried his best to huddle into a ball. _It’s okay, I hate me too._

 

Lance put Blue into her hangar and slowly limped into the halls of the castle. He was forced to perform an impromptu stitching on his side with a random first-aid kit he found because the wound was starting to become worse. His eye, however, was a different story. It was still bleeding, and the area around it was slightly swollen.

He heard the voices of his teammates coming from the meeting hall. Holding his side, he limped over to the door. He stopped when he heard the topic the teammates were talking about.

“Honestly, Lance is quite pathetic. He can’t hold off very well on his own, judging by his performance in this battle.”

“He didn’t get his beauty sleep,” A chorus of laughs echoed. “You know how terrible he gets without his beauty sleep. Or manicure, whatever.”

“He acts so much like a kid. How did his parents even deal with him? He’s in his late teens. I’m sure his family was glad when they heard the news of him moving out.”

“He’s a walking, talking disaster.”

Lance slowly opened the door and limped into the room. His teammates, Allura, and Coran gasped at the sight they saw. That was the first time he saw the look of sympathy directed towards him on their faces. He coughed, and blood splattered onto the floor. Tears were flowing freely from his eyes, and they left tracks on Lance's bloody face. He gave a weak smile.

 

 

“It’s okay, I hate me too.”


	2. Okay, I'm Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't edited, I wrote this in three hours, and grammar issues are abundant. It's a little OOC, and I apologize in advance. ;)

 

 The life of a star is a simple concept— born from a cloud of dust and gas, the star condenses into a blindingly bright sphere of helium. As it shines, the star continues on, until eventually, it dims. The brightness eventually flickers out, and then, _nothing._ The star isn’t significant anymore, and it joins many others like it in a vast cemetery of darkness, only to be outshined by the other massive, luminous stars around it.

 

* * *

  
  


_A star, beaming radiantly, cannot seem as bright when there are others that subdue it._

 

 

* * *

  
  


 The paladins, Allura, and Coran didn’t know how to react when Lance staggered into the meeting hall. Each and every one of them was overcome with shock, sympathy, or a combination of the two. The air was thick with tension, and it increasingly became worse when the blue paladin uttered the few words no one would expect him to mutter:

  


  _“It’s okay, I hate me too.”_

  


 The room was silent; no one took a breath and not one single person moved. Lance looked around the room, shakingly taking a breath as he took in the frozen faces of everyone currently in the hall. No one was saying anything, and the silence was taking a toll on him. He was used to being the butt of the jokes and the human representation of everyone’s disappointment. Lance would’ve taken the insults over the silence; the quiet was too overbearing. He suddenly coughed, hacking more blood on the floor, and _sobbed._

  


 The sound of Lance’s hiccuping breaths brought everyone out of their trance, yet everyone stayed glued to their seats when the blue paladin shakingly lifted his hands to his head and started tugging at his hair.

  


 “Say something!” he cried, as snot, tears, and blood dribbled down his face. “Just say something, _please._ Why is it only now that you’ve stopped berating me?”

 Lance pulled at his hair more and started hyperventilating. Hunk finally got the will to get himself out of his seat and go over to Lance, but he was too slow. Lance choked on blood and collapsed, a gut-wrenching “ _thunk!_ ” echoing throughout the room.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_As the star cools, the core becomes a White Dwarf and dims._

  

  

* * *

  

  


  Lance was immediately placed in a healing capsule once Hunk snapped some sense into everyone else. Now, they gathered around the capsule, each individual with a unique sense of remorse in their eyes as they watched Lance’s chest softly move up and down.

 

Keith was the first to break away from the group, muttering something about having some knives to clean. Pidge slowly crept away to work on improving the security of the castle-ship. Allura bit her lip and went to go discuss things with Shiro. Hunk, although reluctant to leave, couldn’t take the silence and left to stress-bake. Coran simply stayed and cleaned the glass of the capsule, trying to remove any fingerprints on it.

 

Everyone left to do their own things, but it was clear no matter how hard they worked, nothing could distract them from the distraught state of Lance, the image already etched permanently into their minds.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


_When it stops shining, the now dead star is called a Black Dwarf._

  


 

* * *

  
  


Lance died on a Tuesday.

  
  


No one had the heart to take him out of the capsule, because maybe it was all a misunderstanding. Lance was fine, and the capsule had just malfunctioned. Even though the vitals displayed clearly showed that Lance was no longer a part of the living, ignorance was bliss, right?

  
  


It wasn’t until Allura, out of all people, broke out into tears that confirmed everyone’s worst thoughts; Lance truly _was_ dead, and no amount of forgiveness could bring him back.

  


“Oh, _Lance_ ,” Allura cried, “I’m so sorry,”

 

“We’re sorry,” Shiro cut in, at a voice so low you had to strain your ears to hear it, “We never should have chastised you.”

 

Hunk started wringing his hands together. He looked down at the floor, watching droplets fall from his eyes and splatter onto his shoes. Pidge wasn’t any better; they grabbed at their face and squeezed their eyes out of anguish. Keith couldn’t control his emotions, as he yelled out in anger and threw a knife at the capsule. It didn’t crack the glass.

  


* * *

  
  


 The air was crisp, the sun was shining, and the water was crystal clear. A shack sat nearby, the tin roof gleaming from the sun. A rather old, but large house sat a couple of feet away from the shack. Wind chimes hung from the porch, occasionally clinking together from the gentle breeze.

 

_Varadero Beach._

 

The paladins slowly trudged up the porch steps. Shiro was carrying Lance’s body; the paladins had cleaned him up so he looked a little less… _dead_. With heads hung and good posture long forgotten, the group came to a stop in front of the door. Keith was the nearest to the door, so he took in a shaky breath and knocked.

 

A woman came into view. She was a short, and a little stocky, with greying hair tied back into a bun. Wrinkles appeared around her eyes, making their prominence more known when she gave a wide smile. Happiness and disbelief appeared in her eyes, but soon disappeared along with her grin as she took in the sight of Lance. She looked at each of the paladins’ faces, searching their eyes as if she were saying: _Please, don’t tell me this is true. Don’t tell me that my son is dead._

 

Her eyes searched Shiro’s face, desperation and longing evident in her own, and when Shiro only looked down at the ground, she whimpered. She took Lance from Shiro’s arms, ran down the porch steps, and placed Lance gently onto the sand. Hands slowly trailed up to Lance’s face and caressed his cold cheek. The woman then collapsed onto Lance’s chest and bawled.

 

“Oh, _mijo_..” She cried, and took in the appearance of her son. His skin was stretched tightly across his cheeks and his lips was pressed into a tight line. He no longer held a glow; everything about him seemed waxy and fake. The woman ran her hand through his hair and sobbed louder.

 

Eventually, the woman’s cries attracted the attention of the people inside the house. Children and adults came out to gather around the woman and Lance, shock and sadness appearing on their faces. As they began to mourn, the paladins took this as their cue to leave. A family grieving for a lost but now found son was private.

  


* * *

 

 

 

  The castle wasn’t the same with Lance. Every meal was silent, and every training session was difficult to get through. Allura took over as the new blue paladin, but she couldn’t even put on the blue armor as it reminded her too much of Lance. Almost every mission was done with Lance in the armor, and the amount of times he had spent self-abhorring in the suit after Allura had told him off, she didn’t want to know.

  


Reminders of Lance were everywhere around the castle. From that point, Lance’s existence haunted the paladins’ minds, every remnant of a word or phrase they threw at him leaving senses of regret and remorse in their guts.

 

Lance’s death was a hard lesson to learn for them, and it will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives. Regret is a form of punishment itself, but it’s okay.

 

They hate themselves too.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to finally publish this. I'm a little unhappy with the results, so I'll be editing this to make it a little sadder and longer (don't know when, school's starting soon lol). ALSO, there's another work I wrote, titled "The Place", which is a vague spin off of this work. It sort of tells of the aftermath of this lololol.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway, I just wanted to give a disclaimer: I'm not an astrophysicist, so my knowledge is a little wonky. :/
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read this mess of a work though.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully I didn't fail at writing Langst??? I'm really hoping to expand on writing Voltron fics lol.
> 
> Also,
> 
> THE EDITING SYSTEM WAS SO HARD TO FIGURE OUT OMG.


End file.
